Many techniques are known for measuring one or more physical geometric features or characteristics of an object. For instance, a workpiece may be inspected using a measurement apparatus, such as a coordinate measurement machine (CMM). Initially, a measurement path for the measurement apparatus must be defined and programmed. To do so, the workpiece is mounted on a table of the CMM and a measurement probe is brought into contact with the workpiece at a series of discrete positions to generate a series of data points. Such data points are collected and used to define a measurement path about the workpiece.